


Caitlin and the Coma Boy

by JaggedCliffs



Category: DCU, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Barry Allen In A Coma, Barry manages to cause drama while being in a coma the whole time, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pre-Canon, for the whole fic, or at least pre-when most of the show takes place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-04 23:38:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11565759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaggedCliffs/pseuds/JaggedCliffs
Summary: S.T.A.R. Labs is empty of all but four people, one of whom is in a coma. Emptiness haunts the labs' halls as much as it does Caitlin's apartment. Caitlin's new job is to cure Barry Allen, to do something good after the destruction S.T.A.R. Labs caused, and hope the city will eventually forgive her, Cisco, and Dr. Wells. And if the work helps her forget her grief, if Barry and the Wests distract her from the hollowness pervading her life, then all the better.Barry's nine months in a coma, told from Caitlin's perspective.





	Caitlin and the Coma Boy

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been curious about the nine months we barely got to see, and how Caitlin and Cisco responded to this random comatose dude who Dr. Wells decided should take up space right in the middle of their Cortex for however long until he wakes up. I decided to explore that myself.
> 
> I was originally going to fit these vignettes into a strict timeline, but I realized I had no idea when Barry arrived at STAR Labs, nor could I find that info online. I also didn't feel like trying to make a timeline match between _Arrow_ and _The Flash_. And there will be continuity errors, because I haven't seen season 1 in six months and since I live in Canada, I don't have access to _The Flash_ on Netflix *shakes fist at Canadian Netflix*
> 
> I have no idea what either Caitlin or Cisco's specialties are, so I'm going to do what _The Flash_ writers do best and make things up as I go along. I also have absolutely no medical or general engineering knowledge, so please forgive all the incredible scientific and other inaccuracies. I might be doing better than the show anyway in that department anyway.
> 
> Lastly, I was going to think of a very poignant, perhaps vaguely melancholic title, but nothing really fit, so I just went with what I called it in my Word document.

There were days when the bitterness flooded her.

Usually, she managed to keep that feeling at bay. The loneliness was normal, the grief a part of the everyday, the empty hole in her chest a constant companion...bitterness, though, she struggled to avoid.

Bitterness might help keep her mind off of–

_(mourning)_

–off of everything else. But if she wallowed in bitterness, it left her spiralling, resentful and furious with no one–

_(no one anymore)_

_–_ to pull her out of it. It was better, she knew, to focus on the task before her. And try not to think.

Except some days, Caitlin couldn't help it.

“Get me the defibrillator!” she screamed at Cisco, before stabbing the epinephrine into their patient's arm. Dr. Wells did what he could from his wheelchair, holding a gag between their patient's teeth so he wouldn't bite his tongue and choke on his own blood while he seized.

As the ECG continued to flat-line and their patient continued to seize, Caitlin still had enough room for bitterness within her panic.

_Everyone_ at S.T.A.R. Labs had been responsible for the particle accelerator explosion, not just Dr. Wells. But except for her and Cisco–

_(and Ronnie, because Ronnie would have stayed too if–)_

–everyone else had jumped ship. And Caitlin knew it would be a hell of lot easier to stabilize their patient if she had more than two people to help – one of them an engineer, the other one stuck in a wheelchair.

Caitlin snatched the defibrillator from Cisco's hands, and prayed to whoever was listening that Bartholomew Henry Allen didn't die under her watch.

Far too much death haunted her already.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

The first week blurred past, their steady work on a cure interrupted by the staccato minutes of alarm as their patient thrashed and flat-lined. And then, in between, there were the stretches of quiet dullness where there was nothing to do but wait – wait for test results, for their attempted solution to work, for new information to reveal itself.

Caitlin dreaded those stretches.

Today, of course, was one of them. They were waiting for an opinion on the patient's MRI scans from an expert in Gotham, as well as the results from the latest batch of his blood that they were running.

Caitlin moved in a fog, floating from her morning routine to her elevator ride up to the sixth floor. Dr. Wells was probably sitting with Bartholomew, watching over him until Caitlin took over; he was always there in the few hours when it was too late for Cisco to stay, and too early for Caitlin to come in.

Maybe, like Caitlin, Dr. Wells wasn't fond of going home either.

Coffee carafe in hand, Caitlin drifted into the Cortex, running through the routine for the day in her head: check on the machines for irregularities, turn the patient to prevent bedsores, change the IV bag–

It took Caitlin a second to realize there was someone sitting with Bartholomew, but it wasn't Dr. Wells.

Ms. West turned around, quickly dropping Bartholomew's hand from where had been it tucked between her own. “Hi,” Ms. West said, tucking a length of hair behind her ears, a quick, not-quite-smile flitting across her tired face. “Dr. Wells said it was okay if sat with him before you came in.”

When Caitlin remained frozen to the spot, staring, Ms. West frowned. “Sorry, is this a bad time?” she asked. “I just...I'm taking over for a friend's shift later today, and I still wanted to have time to...” She gestured at Bartholomew.

Caitlin blinked, feeling like she was trying to drag a heavy wool blanket off her thoughts. “No, no, it's fine,” she finally answered, mentally kicking herself. Really, after almost a week, she shouldn't be acting like this when one of the Wests came by.

As the only one with any real medical experience at S.T.A.R., Caitlin spent the bulk of her time at the lab, and the bulk of that time in and around the Cortex. It wasn't that she didn't trust Cisco or Dr. Wells – Dr. Wells was working on a cure with her, and Cisco had helped stabilize the patient enough times, he could probably do it in his sleep.

But if anything went wrong, Caitlin felt more comfortable on the front lines than squirrelled away in the recesses of the building. The others just couldn't help the same way she could. And, she figured, it was her responsibility to give the Wests her best medical assessment of the patient.

Consequently, she was usually around whenever the Wests came to visit – which had been almost every day so far, whether one or both of them. Caitlin did her best to greet them and walk them through any recent developments.

And then she would slink away to one of the offices to work, attempting to find that delicate balance between remaining close in case something went wrong and trying not to eavesdrop. She still hadn't quite found it.

They talked to Bartholomew. A lot. Ms. West, especially. From the snippets Caitlin heard, Ms. West talked about her day, about her job, about her schoolwork. Sometimes her voice cracked, and Caitlin retreated as far as she dared, sometimes going as far as to stick in her earbuds and blast music through like Cisco did.

Detective West was more of the silent type. Sometimes he'd talk about the news or how much the precinct missed him. Mostly, he'd take Bartholomew's hand, and stare off into space.

It was already dragging Caitlin down.

There was a reason she'd stayed away from General Practitioner medicine, and really anything to do with talking to patients and their families. In her examiner's notes, her bedside manner had been described as “cold” and “distant”. It wasn't that she didn't _care_ about her patients, it was just...well, she'd heard enough about the strain put on GP doctors, surrounded by the sick and the dying.

(“You'll _loathe_ being a practitioner. You _know_ theoretical medicine is where you belong,” Mother had told her, that dismissive surety in her voice. Out of spite, Caitlin had tried out six months in residency. She'd hated the work, almost as much as she hated that her mother was right.)

Compartmentalization was easier than heartbreak. It was why she had decided to stick to the research side of things.

(And what a _joke_ that had turned out to be.)

Gathering herself back together, Caitlin tried to plaster on a smile. Ms. West only looked concerned at the attempt, so Caitlin dropped it.

“Go ahead and sit with him,” Caitlin told her, already heading off towards the med lab. Retreating, as she always did. “I'll be right here if you need me.”

Less than five minutes had passed when she realized she had forgotten to run her checks on Bartholomew's vitals.

They always tested the patient at the same times every day, or as close as they could manage. Better, that way, to maintain stable results and test for fluctuations. If she waited until Ms. West left, the window would close and their tests would be skewed.

Cisco was more of a people person than Caitlin could ever be, and Dr. Wells knew how to steer a room. But Cisco was sleeping off his late night of watching Bartholomew, and Dr. Wells – well, Ms. West was more polite than her father, but she never looked as comfortable with Dr. Wells as she did with either Caitlin or Cisco.

Caitlin was Bartholomew's doctor, as little as she'd planned for it.

Taking a deep breath, Caitlin rounded the door back into the Cortex. Clipboard in hand, she said apologetically, “Ms. West, I'm so sorry, but I forgot about my usual tests on Bartholomew. Do you mind?”

Ms. West jumped in surprise, but gave Caitlin a fleeting smile and leaned away from Bartholomew. “Uh, no, of course not. Do whatever you need to.”

“Thank-you,” Caitlin mumbled as she hurriedly ducked towards Bartholomew, drawing a pen light from her lab coat and peeling his eyelids apart.

As Caitlin marked off his pupil's reaction on her clipboard – responsive, but no sign of consciousness, as always – Ms. West abruptly said, “It's just Iris.”

“What?” Caitlin snapped her head up in confusion.

“You don't need to call me 'Ms. West'. Iris is fine. And he prefers Barry.” Ms. West – Iris – nodded at the bed. “He _hates_ the name 'Bartholomew'.”

Caitlin nodded slowly. “Alright. Iris,” she added.

Before she could turn back to the bed, Ms. West – Iris – spoke again. “And um, thank-you, by the way. You and Cisco.”

When Caitlin stared blankly, Ms. West – _Iris_ – gestured at the bed and explained, “For doing this. For staying here.” A hardness appeared in Iris's eyes. “You could have left, just like I guess everyone else did.”

Caitlin didn't know what to say.

_They should have stayed, like_ _ **I**_ _did,_ her bitterness murmured, but Caitlin knocked the thought away, burying it.

She decided on, “It...felt like the natural thing to do.”

“Well, I don't see _them_ here helping Barry.” Iris' voice shook with something beside anger, and her eyes glittered with sudden tears. She sniffed, swiping at her eyes, before turning around and pressing a hand against her face. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“It's alright,” Caitlin said quietly.

It occurred to her that she should reach out, put a hand on Iris' shoulder. Say comforting words, give her shoulder a squeeze.

It's what people did to her when they heard about Ronnie.

She barely felt anything when they did.

But Caitlin was numb inside, frozen. She didn't even have a body to bury, whereas Iris was just waiting for Bartholomew – Barry – to wake up.

Maybe there was still something burning inside of Iris.

Caitlin gently put a hand on Iris's shoulder. “We're doing everything we can for him,” she said.

Iris nodded, back still turned.

Caitlin dropped her hand, and went back to running her checks, while behind her Iris sniffled and tried to stop her tears. As soon as Caitlin finished, she again retreated to the med lab, shoving her earbuds in and hoping whatever music her phone landed on would keep the sounds of Iris' grief at bay.

Because this was exactly why Caitlin did her best to keep away once the Wests came.

She didn't need – _couldn't have_ – their sadness weighing on her.

Bartholomew, Barry, was her project, her _work_ , to keep her busy as she tried to figure out a way to save him.

He was supposed to stop her from mourning every hour of the day, not drag her down further. While she was in S.T.A.R., with Cisco and Dr. Wells, with a young man whose illness defied logic, she could set her life aside. Compartmentalize.

It was why she dreaded going home.

The silence gave her too much time to think.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

When a sharp knock sounded against the entryway to the Cortex, Caitlin jumped, her pen sliding through her fingers and clattering to the floor. Cisco, who'd been sucking on a lollipop as he lazily “worked” on one of the computers, almost slid off his chair as he and Caitlin spun around.

There was a man standing just inside the Cortex, about middling age and height, dressed in a suit and tie. In the crook of his left elbow balanced a well-organized bouquet of flowers. His right hand was still outstretched from knocking on the wall of the Cortex.

Cisco rose first, trying to discreetly hide his lollipop behind his back and failing miserably. “Hey, hi you – ummm, who are you?” he asked as Caitlin stood up beside him, wondering the same.

Aside from the Wests, no one had come to S.T.A.R. Labs since the EPA had finished their inspection, let alone ventured as far as the Cortex. Neither of the Wests had mentioned any other visitors, and the man was dressed too formally for a flower delivery man.

The man frowned. Striding forward, he asked, “You're doctors Snow and Ramon, right?” Before either of them could answer, he held out his free hand. “I'm Captain David Singh of the CCPD. Allen – Barry – he's one of my CSI.”

Oh. That would explain it.

Cisco took the hand first. “Not a doctor, but yeah, I'm Cisco Ramon.”

“And I'm Dr. Caitlin Snow,” Caitlin said, taking his hand next. “I'm Mr. Allen's personal physician.”

“Good to meet you both.” Captain Singh nodded, as brusque as his tone. Caitlin wondered if, unlike the Wests, he blamed the two of them for the particle accelerator along with Dr. Wells.

_Probably_ , her thoughts supplied.

Brandishing the flowers as best he could, Singh continued, “The department decided to chip in, and I thought I'd drop these off myself, rather than get Detective West to do it. See where Allen's resting up now.”

“Of – of course,” Cisco said, glancing at Caitlin, his eyes begging her to take the lead.

“Do...do you want some privacy?” Caitlin offered, her glance back at Cisco silently questioning why he thought she would be better at this. She didn't have any more experience with police captains than him.

Captain Singh waved them both off. “No, it won't take more than a couple minutes. Is Allen doing well?” he asked, already making his way over to the bed.

Trailing behind him with Cisco, Caitlin answered, “He's...better. The seizures have definitely decreased – he hasn't had one in a couple days.” Two and a half weeks with him, and that was the best they could do.

“That's good,” Captain Singh said anyway. “Glad there's been some progress.” He reached the bed, stopping abruptly a couple feet away. A mixture of alarm and worry flickered across his face as he looked down at Barry, surrounded by blinking and softly-beeping machines, but it quickly submerged under a stern look. Caitlin was getting the sense that was his default expression.

“Allen's a good kid,” Captain Singh said after a few seconds. “His head's in the clouds, and he could be late to his own...well.” He grimaced, evidently deciding to leave the rest of that phrase unsaid. “But he's one of the best CSI we have.”

Caitlin hung back with Cisco, wondering if Captain Singh wanted a response. He didn't seem to expect one. He set the flowers down on a table that had been brought in just for that purpose, the bouquet joining a couple other sparse, wilting bunches. There used to be more, when Caitlin and Cisco moved them from the hospital along with Barry. The ones that remained were maintained by Detective West and Iris, along with a surprisingly large bouquet that had been sent all the way from Starling City with the message _“From Felicity and friends.”_

Singh stared down at Barry, eyes flitting again across the tubing and machines hooked up to him. About half a minute passed before he said, “Wake up soon, Allen.” With that, he turned away from the bed and towards the exit. “Take good care of him,” Singh told her and Cisco as he walked by. It sounded like an order.

Without any other parting word, he left just as brusquely as he had entered.

Cisco looked over at Caitlin and shrugged, then headed back to the desk. Feeling suddenly worn out by the surprise visit, or maybe by its loss, Caitlin followed.

Somehow, Captain Singh left the room more empty than before. As if, for a minute, he'd been a faint echo of flurry of activity and people they used to have up here.

Now, the lab had been emptied once more.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

“And let's see how your blood pressure is doing today, Mr. Allen,” Caitlin muttered, steadily releasing the pressure on the sphygmomanometer around Barry's arm. “Aaaaand...it's 100/70.” Caitlin frowned as she logged it on her laptop. “Hmm, that's pretty good for a guy who doesn't get around much.” Turning her frown on Barry, she said, “What exactly are you doing that–”

“ _A-ha!_ ”

Caitlin shrieked, dropping the sphygmomanometer as she spun around

“You're talking to him!” Cisco crowed, the biggest, smuggest grin on his face as he all but skipped into the Cortex. “You said 'oh Cisco, I'm not going to talk to him like he's a pet', and 'oh Cisco, it's rude to talk to him when he can't respond.'”

“Noooo.” Caitlin drew out the word, searching for an excuse. “I was talking to myself.”

“Nope. I distinctly heard a 'you' and a 'Mr. Allen'.” Cisco's smirk didn't falter as he sauntered up to her and Barry. “Admit it Caitlin, he's good listening material. Ain't that right, buddy?” He turned the last comment on Barry, lightly nudging the patient before flopping into the wheely chair on the other side of the bed. Leaning back and lacing his fingers behind his head, he said, “You know, it's a lot funner if you talk to him. ”

Hoping she wasn't too red from embarrassment, Caitlin made a face at him. “We're not here for _fun_ , Cisco.”

Cisco's grin sobered. “No, we're here because we've got nowhere else to go.” Then he cleared his throat, and tried another smile. “So what's the prognosis, Dr. Snow? Sleeping Beauty waking up anytime soon?”

“Well, his vitals are doing great – I mean really, even for someone _not_ in a coma, they'd be–”

As if the universe enjoyed mocking her, Barry's chest heaved upward, and he began to choke. Cisco was already running for the defibrillator and Caitlin reaching for the epinephrine by the time the ECG started blaring at her.

Uncapping the needle, Caitlin ground her teeth to hold back the scream of frustration. Almost five straight days without a seizure, and now they were back to square one.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

Barry stopped seizing.

Nearly a month since the Wests brought him here, and they finally found a cure.

They had discovered that it wasn't that his heart was flatlining, but that it was simply going too fast for the machine to record. Cisco made some modifications, and from there, Dr. Wells determined a solution – like a miracle swept up from the depths of the empty lab.

All that was left was for Barry to wake up.

His heartbeat, Caitlin found, had settled at an abnormally high rate. Under her stethoscope, it sounded like how she imagined a hummingbird's wingbeat would, almost too fast to be perceptible.

There was also the weirdest thing going on with Barry's muscles. While not exactly her field of medicine, Caitlin knew it was usually a struggle to keep a bedridden patient's muscles from atrophying. But just as with everything else, Barry's body decided to defy normal scientific principles, and instead his muscles grew. Caitlin knew it was more than just the physical therapy exercises she and Cisco did for him – no way would that solidify his biceps, let alone start giving him abs.

“Dude, what is your workout secret? Because I want it,” Cisco bemoaned, poking at Barry's well-toned stomach until Caitlin slapped his hand away.

They had their theories. With the rumour of a man who could control the weather, and Cisco positive that was someone out there who could slow down time...The wave of dark matter had done something to the city that night, and Caitlin hoped all of Barry's symptoms were as benign as good musculature and a hummingbird-fast heartbeat.

It had been Dr. Wells' idea to keep Barry's physical changes from the Wests, though. He believed it would put undue worry and stress on them, for symptoms that may turn out to be nothing and for a theory that couldn't be tested. If there were any problems once Barry awoke, then they would notify the Wests and investigate the changes further.

As soon as Barry had been stabilized, however, the Wests were still the first to know.

In the weeks since Barry had been at S.T.A.R. Labs, the Wests had fallen into a visitation routine. Detective West and Iris came around bi-weekly – Iris on Tuesday mornings before her shift, Joe on Thursdays after his, and both on Sunday afternoons (“That way,” Iris told Caitlin, “we won't leave him alone for too long”). The only changes came when Iris had to take on an extra shift or Joe ran into an emergency at work.

But when Cisco had called the West to announce their success, neither of them had wasted any time rushing over. Detective West didn't even have his normal chilly looks and curt words for Dr. Wells, and there might have been something like gratitude in his voice after Dr. Wells announced he had been the one to find a cure.

The Wests had stayed for a full two hours. On their way out, Caitlin caught Iris laughing and bumping her shoulder against her father's, eyes bright, and Detective West with a grin that lit up his face.

They both came the next day. And the next.

It was just Iris the day after that, face strained once more. Detective West the day after that. No one the next.

The two of them fell back into their normal schedule.

Even the conversations even became routine. After the “hi”s and “how are you”s, came the “any change?”s, and when they left there were the “bye”s and the “call me if anything happens.”

By next week, it was “you know what to do” before they left.

The week after that, it had dropped by the wayside.

At least the routine let Caitlin develop one of her own. Changing the catheter, sponge-bathing the patient with Cisco, physical therapy, all the other things family members would rather not see were safely carried out in the days and hours when S.T.A.R. had no extra visitors.

As in, all but three to six hours of the week, depending on how long the Wests elected to stay for.

And in between the routine and the visits, there was nothing to do but _wait_.

More than once, Caitlin found herself wishing that Barry would start seizing again, and immediately tried to clamp down on that thought, guilt flooding her stomach. But he had been her distraction. Her project. If she was figuring out how to cure him, how to keep alive, then there wasn't enough room in her thoughts for anything else.

Playing nurse to a comatose body didn't exactly leave her mind occupied.

In the silence of the Cortex, of her apartment, of S.T.A.R. Labs' halls, she could feel the weight of it all crushing down on her. She couldn't breathe through the stale emptiness. In hours before Cisco came, when Dr. Wells was tucked away in his office or home or wherever he was now that he was all but a recluse, it was just her and Barry.

Over two weeks after the seizures stopped, and Caitlin knew she would collapse under the weight of the emptiness.

She finished recording the last of Barry's vital signs, and turned to her computer. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she clicked on a project folder. She hadn't touched it since before the explosion.

If Barry didn't provide a distraction, she'd find something else that would.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

Caitlin should have been more prepared for deviations from the routine.

And yet, she was still surprised when she almost ran into Detective West on her way into the Cortex, his suit dishevelled and bags under his eyes, at seven in the morning on Thursday.

“Detective West,” Caitlin greeted. She tried to sound chipper, but even with half a cup of coffee in her system, it fell flat. “Early morning?”

“Late night,” he corrected, breaking out in a yawn mid-way through as if to demonstrate.

Caitlin winced in sympathy. “You're always free to come back later–”

West was already shaking his head. “This evening, I'll be heading out of town on a case for a few days. Not sure when I'll get back.”

Caitlin pursed her lips. “Well, can't you request for someone else to go?” she asked. It seemed unfair to put Detective West out like that.

“The captain said he could put another detective in charge, but...” Detective West shrugged. “It's my case. My responsibility. It's time I got back into the real swing of things.” He turned his head, staring into the Cortex to where Barry's body was just visible past the desk, his face etched in exhaustion and fainter lines of grief. “I just wanted to say goodbye to him, for now.”

Caitlin's stomach twinged at the look on Detective West's face; she'd seen it in the mirror often enough. She found herself searching for something to say – something that would be more than empty platitudes. Realizing she did have some good news to share, she blurted out, “We don't see any reason why your son should still be in his coma, so he should well be on the road to recovery. His brains scans haven't turned up anything unusual – at least, not from the latest MRI scans Dr. Wells and I have been studying.”

At Dr. Wells' name, Detective West's head snapped back around, his expression tightening as it did whenever Dr. Wells was mentioned. Caitlin raised her head a notch, and didn't bother hiding the defensiveness in her voice when she added, “Dr. Wells has been doing his best for Barry. He always has been.”

West studied her for a second, and sighed. “I've been a cop a long time,” he said, voice low. “A man like Wells, who built this company from the ground up...I know better than to think that this – _any_ of this – is out of the goodness of his heart.”

Shock drove through Caitlin, accompanied by a flash of hurt, and she took a step back. Detective West had _never_ been so upfront about his dislike for Dr. Wells. “You don't know him, _or_ what he's been through, _or_ what he's done to help,” Caitlin retorted. The explosion had been a mistake, an _accident_ – a terrible, horrific accident, and yet the whole city acted as if Dr. Wells _knew_ this would happen, as if he wouldn't have prevented it if he could have. As if he wouldn't have saved all those lives if he could have.

“I'm not blaming you, or Cisco,” Detective West said placatingly. “I know you think the best of him, and I don't doubt Barry will too.” He glanced back at the bed, eyes weary. “He's always been too trusting for his own good.”

“Maybe you've just grown too cynical,” Caitlin countered, tone much sharper than usual.

West's eyes cut to Caitlin. For a second, Caitlin thought he would bite something out in turn, and from there it would escalate until only Cisco could avoid the bad blood in the lab. But Detective West just said, “You know Henry Allen is in jail, right?”

Caitlin nodded, startled at the abrupt change in topic.

“You know why?”

Caitlin nodded again. It was hard to forget.

“Barry believes that man is innocent. After _fifteen_ years, Barry still can't see Henry Allen is guilty, and that man does _nothing_ to dissuade Barry, stringing him along as Barry pours his _life_ into helping him–” West's voice cut off in a noise of disgust. Glaring off into the Cortex, he growled, “Barry will always believe the best in people, even when they don't deserve it.”

Caitlin was too stunned to speak. This was the most Caitlin had heard from either Iris or Detective West about Barry's birth parents, and she certainly didn't expect _this_. Mouth working for a second, she at last managed, “Dr. Wells _isn't_ Henry Allen. _I_ think he still deserves that belief.”

Detective West looked back at her, surprised, like he had forgotten she was in the same room as him. “ _Maybe_ Wells does,” he said slowly, and ran a hand down his face. “Sorry, Caitlin, I shouldn't be dragging you into this. I've been awake too long. Iris said I was always at my worst after a late night case.” Shaking his head, he turned away from the Cortex, back down the hall. “I need to get off to bed. You and Cisco look out for Barry. And yourselves,” he called over his shoulder.

_It's too late for that_ , Caitlin thought as she watched him leave, feeling more than a little shaken up.

It didn't escape Caitlin's notice that Detective West never referred to Henry Allen as Barry's father.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

Caitlin knew she was being a coward.

Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, it had just been Iris who visited, Detective West evidently still being out of town. What hadn't been quite as expected was Iris jogging down the hall, breathing out, “Oh thank God,” when she spotted Caitlin by Barry's bed.

Sprinting across the Cortex towards her, Iris had shouted, “Caitlin, _Caitlin quick_ , I need you to write something down for me. I thought I had more time, but Dad's gonna be home tomorrow morning–”

Iris had stopped talking to pull in a gulp of air once she reached the bedside, and Caitlin took that moment to ask, “What's wrong?”

“I need Barry's medical details before – _shit,_ ” Iris broke off, glancing down at her phone. “I missed it,” she groaned, collapsing into the chair beside Barry's bed.

“Missed...what?” Caitlin prompted, wondering if she should be worried.

“Prison calling hours,” Iris sighed and stared up at Caitlin. “I called Henry – Barry's biological father – a couple days ago to tell him Barry was finally stabilized. I would have done it weeks ago but, with Dad around…” Iris shrugged, glancing away and crossing her arm uncomfortably. “He's not exactly Henry's biggest fan. When I tried to call about Barry being in a coma back in December, Dad was...well, it didn't go so well. The only way I persuaded Dad that we should call Henry in the first place is that it's what – what Barry would've...” Her words trailed off, voice on the edge of breaking, and she stared down at Barry's body. Feeling like she was interrupting a private moment, Caitlin averted her eyes, uncomfortable.

“Anyway,” Iris said after a moment, turning back to Caitlin with her voice under control, “Henry wanted to know the medical details, so I was going to ask you for them today. But _of course_ Dad called about five minutes ago to say he'll be home tomorrow morning. Before the prison phoning hours begin.” She collapsed forward, elbows on her knees and head in her hands. “Maybe I can fit it in while I'm on break tomorrow, or just fess up to Dad” she muttered to herself, fingers digging into her hair. “He's gonna be so _pissed_ when he finds out–”

“I can do it.”

Caitlin immediately regretted the offer – what did she know about talking to criminals, let alone _murderers –_ but when Iris looked up at her with a mixture of surprise and relief, she knew she couldn't back out of it.

“Are you sure?” Iris asked, rising from her seat.

“Well, I wouldn't want to get you in trouble with your dad,” Caitlin said. “And I'm Barry's doctor – your dad can't get mad at me for speaking to Barry's father.”

“Okay. Okay, great, I'll...” After her whirlwind of emotions, Iris looked like she was trying to wind herself down. “Do you need me to walk you through the process? And if it's too expensive, I can always pay you back.”

“Star Labs can front the cost, and I'm sure I can figure it out. Don't worry, it'll be fine.” Caitlin tried for a smile. It was better than her last attempt with Iris, but she felt like it didn't come off well.

Iris' smile was much more genuine. “Thank-you,” she said. She clasped Caitlin's hands between her own, unexpectedly. “If there's anything else you think Henry should know, feel free to call him later, or let me know and I'll find a way to pass it on.”

Still taken aback by the gesture, Caitlin nodded. “I'll do my best.”

Iris smiled at her gratefully, and with a sigh, plopped back down beside Barry's bedside. Her shoulders relaxed as if a weight had been lifted from them. Putting her hand atop Barry's own, she murmured, “Don't worry, Barr, we've got your dad covered.”

As Iris squeezed Barry's hand, Caitlin had decided to make her exit.

That had been nearly twenty-fours ago. Caitlin was running out of time.

According to Iron Heights' website, calling hours would be over in thirty minutes, and Iris would return tomorrow morning. Which meant if Caitlin didn't make the call to Iron Heights Prison – _prison –_ now, she'd either have to lie or tell Iris that she just couldn't do it.

She'd considered begging Cisco or Dr. Wells to make the call, but that made her feel even more of a coward. Cisco wasn't the patient’s doctor, and she doubted he would feel any more comfortable calling a murderer. And the thought of asking Dr. Wells made her feel like a child, wanting her parents to care of the monsters under her bed.

Slowly and methodically, Caitlin went through the steps she'd found online. She was even using the lab's phone rather than her cell, as if that somehow made it safer. Sitting in her med lab, overlooking the Cortex and Barry's comatose body, she tried to ignore her sweating hands and the nausea in her stomach. Maybe she should at least call Cisco or Dr. Wells up to the Cortex – Cisco was probably in his workshop, and Dr. Wells was usually somewhere around S.T.A.R. Labs at this time of day.

But the toll was paid, the mechanical voice on the phone was telling her to wait as they summoned the prisoner, and Caitlin's tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth.

The phone clicked. Distant yelling sounded in the background, and a loud, male voice rushed over the line.

“ _Hello, Iris? Did you hear back from the doctors yet? Why are you calling from Star Labs?”_

Caitlin's heart beat in her throat.

_(“Allen!” Cisco had shouted, clicking his fingers. “That's where I remember the name from – that murder case when I was a kid.”_

“ _What?” Caitlin had asked, looking up from where she was changing Bartholomew's IV bag._

_Cisco turned the monitor around, a newspaper headline blown across it. “The Allen murder. Explains the foster dad and sis.”_

_Caitlin squinted at the monitor. “ESTEEMED DOCTOR CHARGED IN MURDER OF WIFE”, the headline read. A tall, square-shouldered man was being pulled into a police car in the photo beneath.)_

Caitlin tried to get her mouth to move, and succeeded in making a noise in the back of her throat.

“ _Hello?”_ The voice on the other end asked again. “ _Is that – Barry is that_ _ **you?**_ ” the voice breathed, desperate, hopeful, distressed, all at once. “ _Did you wake up? Are you alright?”_

Caitlin loosed her tongue. “This isn't Barry, Mr. Allen. This is his physician, Dr. C-” Caitlin hesitated. “Dr. Snow,” she settled on.

For a long, drawn-out second, the voice didn't answer. “ _I... I see. Barry, my son...Is he…?”_ There was stark terror in that voice, palpable even through the scratchy phone line and din on the other end.

_(“Why can't we at least_ _ **call**_ _Henry,” Iris snapped. It was Sunday afternoon, Caitlin was in her office with the door closed, but some sound still cut through._

“ _You know why, Iris.” Detective West said, as Caitlin fumbled to get her earbuds unravelled._

“ _Barry tried to visit him every week at Iron Heights and now no contact for_ _ **months**_ –” _Iris shouted until music drowned out their argument.)_

“Barry is fine, Mr. Allen,” Caitlin said quickly.“There haven't been any changes since Iris talked to you. I'm calling because you – Iris said you wanted to know Barry's medical details?”

“ _Yes. Iris said he was no longer going into cardiac arrest?”_

“That's right.” Caitlin's mouth was dry. “Barry was frequently experiencing what we call arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat, and it would cause him to seize and go into cardiac arrest. Defibrillation – the shock provided by those paddles you always see on TV – would only provide a temporary solution, but eventually we found a more permanent cure in pharmacologic cadioversion to restore a regular rhythm, using mainly class two and four antiarrhythmic agents to allow easier blood flow to the heart–” Her words were getting faster and higher-pitched, and Caitlin realized she had stopped using layman's terms in favour of bulling her way through the science. Not wanting to get bogged down in questions, she all but squeaked out, “Sorry, Mr. Allen, but pharmacologic cadioversion is basically a chemical way to restore–”

“ _I know what that means, Dr. Snow,”_ Mr. Allen's voice cut in, more tired than anything else. “ _I am – or, I was a doctor.”_

“Ah,” Caitlin said after a second.

Except for the faint sounds of shouting, there was silence on both ends of the line, racking up minutes that S.T.A.R. Labs would have to pay.

Mr. Allen finally spoke up. “ _Thank-you for your help Dr. Snow. You said class two and four agents?”_

“Yes,” Caitlin said quickly.

“ _Thank-you,”_ Mr. Allen said again. “ _There's just one last thing. As soon as Barry starts waking up, could you...Could you try to call me?”_

Caitlin was having trouble swallowing. She glanced through the med lab windows to where Barry lay, sheets that she had neatly folded herself pulled up to his bare shoulders, and Detective West's voice flashed into her head–

– _stringing him along as Barry pours his_ _ **life**_ _into helping him_ –

A coldness settled at the bottom of Caitlin's stomach. “I'll do what I can,” she answered sharply.

She hung up, hands shaking.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

After Caitlin delivered Cisco his promised burger and fries in his workshop from her impulse Big Belly Burger run, she almost dropped her own bag when she strode into the Cortex and spotted Dr. Wells. Now that Barry didn't need his help, Dr. Wells rarely came up here, preferring the sequestered quiet of his offices. But here he was, brows furrowed, staring off into space next to Barry.

Dr. Wells looked up at her before Caitlin could say anything, his eyes zeroing in on the bag clutched in her hands. “Is that for me?” he asked, a slight smile growing.

Caitlin stopped short. “Oh. No. I'm so sorry, Dr. Wells – I should have asked. I thought you were taking lunch in your office, and I didn't–” she stammered out, internally kicking herself as she circled around the desk towards the bedside. “You could split my fries?” she offered, but Dr. Wells waved her off.

“No, I won't deprive you of your lunch. I'll just have to remember to pick some up tomorrow.”

He didn't seem put-off, which was a relief. Caitlin settled into her usual seat, making a loose triangle between herself, Barry, and Dr. Wells. “So what brings you up here?” she asked, carefully positioning her bag on her lap.

“Merely thinking about our patient.” Dr. Wells turned to face Barry again, a faraway look in his eyes. “There will be quite a bit of explaining to do once he finally wakes up.”

From the melancholy in his voice, Caitlin didn't think he was just talking about Barry's new muscle density and hummingbird heartbeat. Guilt strummed in Caitlin's belly, putting her off the burger she was about to pull out of her bag.

It wasn't like she could ever forget what S.T.A.R. Labs had done to the city. Some days, though, it was farther from her mind than others. Even with proof of it comatose in front of her.

Of course, she thought, glancing at Dr. Wells' distant expression, it wasn't her name smeared in the headlines and news reports. She wasn't a pariah if she decided to go out in public. If her or Cisco chose to leave S.T.A.R., then Mercury Labs or Kord Industries would scoop them up soon enough.

As guilty as she felt, no one would blame a bio-engineering cog in the machine when they had the man at the controls.

Scooting closer to Dr. Wells, Caitlin took her fries out the bag. Holding them out towards Dr. Wells – keeping them well away from Barry's bed to prevent spreading crumbs to his sheets – she said, “You know, Iris told me Barry's a big fan of yours. He's got a pret _ty_ battered copy of your biography sitting up on one of his bookshelves.”

“Does he now?” Dr. Wells' inscrutable eyes met her's. “I hope the real me doesn't disappoint.”

Caitlin put free her hand on Dr. Well's arm. “I'm sure when he wakes up, he'll feel the same. After everything you've done to help him – to save his life–”

“After I endangered it? No,” Dr. Wells shook his head. “I will simply count myself lucky if he's more forgiving than Detective West.”

Finally grabbing a handful of the fries Caitlin kept pointedly offering him, Dr. Wells added, “Besides, I'd hate to be the one to knock one of his heroes off their pedestal.”

He said it glibly, but Caitlin didn't like the sentiment behind it. “If it hasn't happened yet to me and Cisco, then it won't happen to him,” she said firmly, and took her own handful of fries.

The warmth in Dr. Wells' eyes sent her guilt scurrying away, at least long enough for her to enjoy her lunch.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

As Caitlin gradually entered consciousness, she first noticed an ache in her neck and a lack of feeling in her left arm. Eventually, she grasped that this was probably because her head was pillowed on her arm. Next, she found her cheek was not much better off than her neck.

While she began cataloguing the ache of various body part – and if it was worth the effort to move them – she realized there a very familiar voice nearby, climbing up and down in pitch, loud and then soft.

“...I mean, it's not like I'm doing _nothing_ here. Even before the...the y'know, we were at _edge_. Boldly going where no one has gone before...”

Caitlin cracked an eyelid open. Through the window of the med lab, squinting against the lights, she could see blurry movement inside the Cortex. Cisco – that head of hair definitely wasn't Dr. Wells' – sat with his back to the med lab, a couple feet away from Barry's bed. He was waving something in his hand that could have been a wrench, or maybe a rather large screwdriver. Caitlin didn't feel like investigating further to figure it out.

Letting Cisco's voice wash over her, Caitlin closed her eye again. For all her neck was at an awkward angle, it was very comfortable down there on her desk. Except for the asleep arm. Resolving to change that, Caitlin rolled her head onto her right arm instead. Feeling flowed back into her left arm, the crick in neck her stretched out, and Caitlin decided that was much better.

“...do you know what he said _then?_ That being a glorified nursemaid suited me much better.” There was the sound of a screw hitting the floor. “Prick. Just because I was calling Mom for her birthday doesn't mean I had to talk to _him_. Seriously, for the first time in _years_ I wish I had a landline so I could slam that phone down in Dante's face. Pressing the end call button just isn't as satisfying.”

The Cortex went quiet again, except for the delicate creaks and clacks of Cisco working away, as usual. They were always working on something, these days, something to make the city forgive them.

Caitlin had been doing something as well, earlier in the afternoon. Something about Barry's blood and tests, but it was taking a while and she hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. It was always hard to sleep in apartment, these days.

“Y'know...” Cisco's voice started up again, soft, on the edge of Caitlin's hearing. “If you can actually hear all this, and I've read that that can be a thing...You've gotta promise to _never_ repeat anything I've told you. _Ever_. You're allowed to dish on Caitlin and Dr. Wells, but seriously, buddy to buddy, no telling. I'm holding you to that when you wake up.”

If Caitlin had the energy, she would have smiled. As it was, Cisco's voice was getting fuzzy again. Before she drifted off, she distantly noticed the feeling of something draped across her shoulders, like a jacket or blanket, which she didn't think had been there when she first fell asleep.

That was nice. Nice of Cisco, or Dr. Wells, or maybe it had been Ronnie...

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

Caitlin didn't see how Cisco could do this.

“I don't see how Cisco can do this,” she sighed at Barry. She clicked pause on her latest Netflix episode of _Grey's Anatomy_ and dropped her head into her hands.

Somehow, Cisco had convinced her that watching movies in the Cortex next to Barry would be more fun than watching them at home on her own.

Instead, watching her shows next to a coma patient just made her feel more alone. And miserable.

“No offence,” she said to Barry. “I'm sure you're great company when you're fully conscious.”

Barry slowly breathed in and out. For all his heartbeat had changed, he still breathed like a normal person.

Leaning back in her chair, Caitlin rubbed her eyes and groaned. “ _Ugh_. Apart from Cisco and Dr. Wells, you're probably the person I talk to the most. Which is about as pathetic as you'd think.” Almost as pathetic as relying on a coma patient for companionship.

“Not like you really have all that much to brag about,” she told Barry, slouching across the chair's arm towards him. Outside of Captain Singh that one time, no one but Iris and Detective West ever visited. All the flowers had long since wilted, and the Wests had long since given up replenishing them.

Guess being a murderer's son made someone about as popular as wrecking the city did.

“I guess that makes four of us,” she murmured, running a finger along the edge of Barry's bed, drawing aimless patterns in the sheet. “Four lonely peas in a pod.”

It didn't used to be that way. Caitlin used to have friends at S.T.A.R., connections outside the lab.

And Ronnie.

For so long, there had been Ronnie.

Caitlin didn't know she was crying until she spotted the tears on Barry's arm. She wiped them away, just in time for a sob to break in her throat.

She cried, the sound echoing through the empty Cortex, accompanied by Barry's slow breathing and the quiet hum of the machines hooked up to him.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

The _shriek_ of whirring metal pervaded the hall. As Caitlin ran, she deeply regretted her choice of high heels and a pencil skirt today. The noise had began as a faint buzzing when she walked through the elevator doors below – it was only when the elevator had opened on the sixth floor that she recognized the sound as some sort of saw. Coming from the Cortex.

The screaming metal finally came to a halt, and in the deafening silence, she could here Cisco speaking.

“– should cheer you up. According to the Wide World Weird, that man-bat guy you wrote about on your blog? There was another Gotham sighting yesterday. This lady was being mugged and a shadow with wings _swooped_ down–”

The screeching started up again, wiping out all other noise, as Caitlin jogged into full view of the Cortex.

Cisco, with a big, lightning-bright yellow and red headset nestled over his head, plastic goggles strapped in place, was brandishing a hand-held _buzz-saw_. It was carving off little chunks of lumber from a table Cisco must have wheeled in into a bucket on the floor. Cisco stood as far from Barry's bed as he possibly could inside the Cortex – thankfully – except he had his back to the entrance, so he couldn't see Caitlin staring at him in horror.

“Cisco!” Caitlin tried yelling. Cisco, of course, didn't respond. He was happily chatting into the headset's mouthpiece as metal squealed.

Clamping her hands over her ears, Caitlin marched over. Knowing better than to surprise Cisco while he had dangerous instruments in hand, she strode along the Cortex's wall until she was in Cisco's eye-line.

_“Cisco!”_ she screamed again, removing her hands from her ears long enough to frantically wave at him. Cisco must have seen or heard something, because he looked up, finally, and a grin split across his face. He shut down the buzz-saw and lifted up his goggles.

“Hey Caitlin,” he said, smiling broadly as he removed the headset. His nonchalance at this – _this insanity_ only had Caitlin's panic hurtling up about three levels.

“What are you _doing?_ ” Caitlin knew her voice was getting screechy, but the situation warranted it. Marching across the Cortex to Barry's bed, she shouted over her shoulder, “Are you _crazy_ , working with this equipment around Barry? The _sound alone_ could damage–”

“Noooo, for one thing, I'm all the way over here. And for another, Barry's got protection – look – ”

Sure enough, when Caitlin arrived at the bed, she saw the same type of red and yellow headset plastered over Barry's head.

“My very own design,” Cisco said proudly, tapping the outside of his ear pads when Caitlin rounded on him.

Caitlin could only gape. She couldn't _believe_ him. “That microphone is _still_ going to pick up your sawing and–”

“Hey, no, that's what makes these babies so special. They only pick up the human voice, no other ambient noise. No jack-hammering, chainsawing, plain old hammering...Actually–” Cisco reached over onto the desktop and tossed her another one of the headsets, which Caitlin just managed to fumble into her hands. “– I'm still trying to make sure all the words come through, and Barry isn't the best conversational partner at the moment. Wanna give it a whirl?”

For a moment, Caitlin stood frozen, staring, outrage sweeping through her. It burst out of her, and, feeling something in her chest do the same, she snapped, “You shouldn't be testing _unproven tech_ on _my patient._ ” She slammed the headset down onto Barry's former flower-table, ignoring the clattering empty vases. “We're supposed to be _taking care_ of him, not _experimenting_ on him. What if something went _wrong?_ What if they damaged his hearing and _I_ had to explain to the Wests why he's _deaf_ now?” For some reason, tears were gathering in her eyes. “Just one more thing that Star Labs messed up because we weren't careful enough – because we _thought_ we _knew what we were doing_ – because _you–_ ”

The words choked in her throat along with the tears, and Caitlin stopped herself before she said something she couldn't take back.

Cisco wasn't looking at her. He had deflated, his bright grin long gone.

“Caitlin – I'm sorry, I…” He trailed off, staring at the floor. “I'll clean this all up,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Caitlin didn't know how to respond. So she just nodded, which Cisco couldn't see anyway, and sat down beside Barry. Her back remained to Cisco, her teeth biting into her lip and nails digging into her palms to keep the tears at bay. She stayed that way until Cisco rolled his equipment out of the room.

An hour later, Caitlin found Cisco in his workshop. He was working silently, back to the door, sketching out what looked like a design for a suit.

“Hi,” she said.

He didn't turn around. “Your patient okay?” he asked, in lieu of greeting her.

“ _Our_ patient is just fine,” she answered. Cisco twitched at the word “our”, but otherwise didn't move. “Dr. Wells is looking after him now,” she added. She always felt bad about putting Dr. Wells solely in charge when she and Cisco were around, but he always insisted – _“I was the one who put him in this coma, not you. It's only fair that I do my part.”_

Caitlin made her way across the room, until she was standing awkwardly behind Cisco. “I'm sorry about...earlier.”

Cisco just shrugged. “No, you're right. I could have hurt him. That seems to be our speciality these days.”

Those words sounded more like the sort of thoughts that rattled around Caitlin's head than the things that came out of Cisco's mouth.

Feeling exhausted all of a sudden, Caitlin sat down heavily in the chair closest to Cisco, a rolling red one at the desk behind him. Cisco continued sketching, pencil scratching against the top layer of the transparent sheets of paper.

“I should have trusted you,” she began quietly. “You're the best engineer I know. Better than anyone who used to work here. If you thought – no, if you _knew_ it was ready for final testing, then it was ready. You wouldn't have risked it otherwise.”

Cisco still didn't turn, but the line of his shoulders looked a little less rigid, so maybe Caitlin was getting through to him.

She rolled the chair over to his desk, but kept a couple of feet away, letting him have his space. “You know what you're doing, Cisco. You always have. I mean, when have your inventions failed?” Cisco's shoulders jerked, and he glanced at her long enough to give her a skeptical look. “Okay,” Caitlin amended, “I mean apart from–”

“The time I tried to stop the fire alarm from going off every time there was even a small, _contained_ fire?”

“I was going to say the popcorn-slash-poptart machine, but that too.”

The corner of Cisco's lips twitched. “It was called the Popping Tart, and it was a work in progress,” he said, and Caitlin heard the smile in his voice creeping through.

“Exactly, but this–” She gently placed the headset he had tossed at her on his desk, “–is a finished product. And I know you wouldn't have tested it on Barry otherwise. Or, I _should_ have known.”

Cisco stopped sketching. “Maybe,” he said, slowly. He slumped back in his chair, twisting the pencil in his fingers as he stared down at it. “But I also know things go wrong, even after we thought we double and triple checked _every_ detail. Or we thought we knew the worst outcome, and how to contain it, and it blows up in our faces.” He sighed, tossing the pencil onto the desk, and brought his hands up to cover his face. “You're right,” he muttered between his palms. “I shouldn't have been stupid enough to risk something like that.”

Caitlin almost flinched back. She'd rarely heard Cisco talk like this – certainly not since the first couple of weeks after the explosion, when the guilt was heaviest.

Tentatively, she reached over, and squeezed Cisco's shoulder. “It's not your fault,” she said.

“ _Some_ of it is,” he retorted, dropping his hands, eyes flickering towards her before skittering away.

Caitlin swallowed painfully. “You...you know I don't blame you for Ronnie, right?” she whispered. Cisco's head snapped up, eyes meeting her's, surprised and ashamed, and _hurt_.

She rarely brought up Ronnie. And because she didn't talk about it, Cisco didn't either.

This was the first time she had mentioned what happened that night, in the pipeline.

“Ronnie made his choices,” she said softly. “He told you to close those doors.”

“Then _I_ shouldn't have listened to him,” Cisco bit out.

“You saved _lives_. It was Ronnie who shouldn't have – _he_ didn't have to be the one to–”

Caitlin's voice broke, and the tears from earlier returned. This time, she couldn't stop them.

There was only a brief hesitation. Then Cisco closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her.

Gratefully, she hugged him back. As she cried into his shoulder, she thought she felt some tears drip onto her neck and heard sniffling in her ear. She tightened her arms around Cisco.

She hadn't hugged anyone in a long time.

It felt good.

When Caitlin at last returned to the Cortex, she was listening to Cisco recap one of the entries he'd read on Barry's weird blog thing.

“So wait, so she had a shield, a sword, and a _lasso?_ ”

_“Yes, but Caitlin, she's like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster,”_ Cisco's voice said in her ears, laden with exasperation. _“She probably just had_ _one_ _in the original story and people kept adding things.”_

“I know, I was just wondering what the lasso was for – wait, just a moment Cisco. Sorry Dr. Wells,” she said, slipping off the headset and cutting off Cisco's reply. “What were you saying?”

Dr. Wells smiled as he steered his chair towards her. “I was just asking why you and Mr. Allen were wearing headsets, but I think I've figured it out. Tell Cisco hello from...down in his workroom, is he?” Caitlin nodded, a little abashedly, but Dr. Wells didn't seem to mind the private conversation. Wheeling past her, he said, “Please, carry on, Dr. Snow.”

“Thank-you, Dr. Wells!” she called after him, and slipped the headset back on. Glancing over at Barry to ensure that nothing had changed in her absence, Caitlin sat back down at her desk and asked, “Sorry, so what else did the Amazon lady do?”

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

Caitlin finally agreed to try things Cisco's way.

While Cisco assembled the projector and screen, Caitlin took care of the last of Barry's needs for the evening. Cisco set the chairs up just beside Barry's bed, Caitlin dimmed the lights, and at 7pm sharp the _Star Wars_ opening theme blasted through the Cortex as the bright yellow opening scroll took up the far wall.

“Just like a movie theatre, right?” Cisco said, nudging her.

“Pretty close,” she agreed.

The scroll hadn't even finished when there was a beeping sound like a microwave, and Cisco leapt out of his seat. “One sec,” he said, running off. “Pause it for me!”

Caitlin fumbled with the mouse, catching it just as the Star Destroyer loomed into view. She caught the whiff of fresh, buttery popcorn a second before Cisco came into view, balancing a huge bowl in one hand, and, in the other–

“You _didn't_ ,” Caitlin gasped.

“I did.” Cisco, grinning ear-to-ear, presented her with a plate pop-tarts. “I got the Popping Tart working. Patent pending”

“Wait, if we're eating, we should move away from the bed,” Caitlin said, already standing and dragging her chair off to the right.

“But this is the best seat in the house,” Cisco whined. “Perfectly centred, perfect placement so your neck doesn't hurt, the best sound dynamics we can get. The only better spot is _on_ Barry's bed.”

“I am _not_ cleaning popcorn bits out of Barry's bed,” Caitlin insisted.

“Who's cleaning Barry's bed now?”

Both of them looked up as Dr. Wells wheeled into the room, and immediately set the chairs and bowls down.

“Ummm, hi Dr. Wells,” Caitlin said, stepping in front of the popcorn bowl on Barry's former flower table, as if Dr. Wells hadn't already smelled it. She didn't actually know if they were technically doing anything wrong, but she felt like the time her parents caught her trying to lure a frog inside a fully-furnish fish tank.

“We were just...” Cisco waved vaguely at the projector. “Watching a movie.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Dr. Wells said dryly, staring at the the bottom of the Star Destroyer that filled the screen as he rolled up to the bed. “Is there room for one more?”

“Oh, yes–” Caitlin began.

“For sure–” Cisco nodded.

“It's just Barry's bed–”

“It's the best place to watch in the Cortex–”

“I _just_ changed the sheets, we are not getting crumbs–”

“I've eaten beside him before and–”

“ _Or,_ ” Dr. Wells cut in, “we could all sit in front of his bed?”

Five minutes later, they were lined up at the foot of Barry's bed, Dr. Wells in the middle, Caitlin scooping popcorn into her mouth on his left while on his right, Cisco nibbled on one of the poptarts.

It was certainly preferable to watching Netflix in the Cortex with just Barry for company.

It was indescribably better than watching in her apartment, with just the empty ache inside her to remind her of company lost.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

Six months.

It had been six months since the particle accelerator exploded. Six months since destruction and death had rained down on the city.

Six months since she had listened to her fiance die.

Caitlin lay in bed, watching the minutes slip by on her bedside clock, and thought about staying in her apartment. Let Cisco and Dr. Wells take care of everything. She wasn't needed at S.T.A.R. Barry hadn't needed a full-fledged doctor for months.

She could stay home and grieve.

Eventually, Caitlin crawled out of bed, and made it to the lab.

As it turned out, there was a break to the monotony today. Dr. Wells informed both her and Cisco over lunch that the Wests had phoned ahead: they were to expect company in the evening.

Six months since the explosion meant six months since Barry entered his coma. At 5 o'clock sharp, Detective West and Iris arrived in the Cortex, soon followed by Captain Singh and a few other men and women who were probably part of the police department.

Caitlin was grateful for the distraction, and she hated herself for it.

Dr. Wells had already made himself scarce, judiciously avoiding any confrontation that would sour the mood, so it was up to Caitlin and Cisco to inform everyone what they could and couldn't touch.

“We'll just be a call button away if you need us,” she told the gathering, before she and Cisco made their escape.

They were both still in earshot when she heard one of the men say, “Have you thought about options, Joe? How long do you need to keep him _here?_ ” Caitlin shared a glance with Cisco. Neither of them missed the disgust in the man's voice. “I mean, with the...”

The rest of the man's sentence, along with Detective West's reply, was lost in the echo of the corridor.

Caitlin quickened her pace as she retreated to Dr. Wells' office, head ducked down and lips pressed together, Cisco trailing silently behind.

Shame pooling low in her stomach, Caitlin brought it up first.

“How much longer do we plan to keep Barry with us, Dr. Wells?” she asked, twisting her hands in her lap and staring at the back of Dr. Wells' head. He was bent over his work desk, hands flying across the keyboard as he typed. “There isn't much more we can do for him here. Isn't it time he went back to a hospital?”

“Sure, he's good company,” Cisco joined in, draped backwards over a swivel chair with his head propped glumly on his hand. “But what are we supposed to do, just keep him as a permanent fixture? Work around him the rest of our days?”

“Now Cisco, Caitlin, you know these things take time.” Dr. Wells almost sounded like he was chiding them. He swung his wheelchair around from his desk to face them fully, taking off his glasses as he did so. “It can take six months to heal a broken leg, while the physical therapy itself can take years. A birth, from conception, through all those multiplying and growing cells, until new life is ready to emerge, only takes nine months. And as for comas, the longest one recorded is nineteen _years_.” Dr. Wells leaned back, putting his glasses on again. “In the long run, six months isn't that much time.”

“Yeah, but I don't really think we can take care of him for nineteen years, let alone _one_ ,” Cisco protested.

“And we aren't a medical facility,” Caitlin added. “We really _should_ bring up options with the Wests.”

Dr. Wells gave her a thoughtful look. “Perhaps, Caitlin,” he said, drumming his fingers on the arm of his wheelchair. “But I believe it would be for the best if we waited a few more months before asking Detective West if he wants to relocate his foster son. For all we know, Mr. Allen may relapse, and he will require our expertise. Not to mention, well,” Dr. Wells grimaced, “there are Mr. Allen's new...physical developments to consider. Here, we can better keep him away from prying eyes – or instruments – than say, at Metro General. At worst, the Wests can't stop him from being turned into a lab rat. At best, they have to suffer through the publicity. Better, I think, for Mr. Allen to languish in anonymity for now.”

“Of – of course,” Caitlin quickly agreed, abashed. Cisco, no longer meeting Dr. Wells' eyes, nodded along.

They left it at that.

When the gathering filtered out, Detective West and Iris an extra half an hour behind the others, it was almost disappointing. By then, it was late enough that Caitlin should go home too. Alone.

Once they'd started dating, she and Ronnie used to take turns going to each other's apartments after work, before they had moved in together. On a warm summer evening like this, they'd probably walk the downtown streets for a bit, stopping in at a cafe or restaurant that struck their fancy. If there was a chilly breeze and Caitlin forgot her jacket, Ronnie would wrap an arm around her shoulders, holding her close. He had always radiated heat, keeping her warm better than any sweater.

No wonder she felt frozen inside these days.

She finished her last check-up on Barry – no change, as always – and began heading off to the elevator, leaving Cisco and Dr. Wells with Barry for the rest of the evening.

Only she didn't expect Cisco to catch her by the arm as she reached the elevator.

“Caitlin – wait,” he huffed out, slightly out of breath from his jog down the corridor. “Do you want to do something? Like, go see a movie?”

Caitlin stared, then shook her head. “No, I – I really should – it's getting late,” she said, pulling away.

“Ronnie was my friend too,” Cisco said quietly, and Caitlin stopped before her finger hit the call button for the elevator. “I don't really want to go home to an empty apartment and think about the fact that he's gone, along with everything else.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “And I don't think you do either.”

Caitlin should. It was what she supposed to do – mourn.

Six months since he was gone, six months since everything had fallen to pieces, and she should be too. What did it mean, if she got used to it? If she got over it, and that ache inside her chest dulled away to nothing? Or if she kept looking for distractions in every place and person, hoping to chip that ache away when she knew that it should stay – that _he_ should stay?

But...she knew that even if it meant letting him go, Ronnie would want her to be whole, for that ache to heal.

And she didn't want to keep falling to pieces. She didn't want to stay alone.

Maybe Cisco didn't, either.

“Alright” she said tentatively, and the relief flooding Cisco's eyes matched her own. Guilt, of course, came with it.

That didn't prevent her from jogging back to the Cortex with Cisco, or stopping Cisco from asking, “Dr. Wells, if Caitlin and I catch a movie together, do you think you could...”

“Look after Mr. Allen for the time being?” Dr. Wells finished, raising his eyebrows as he steered his chair half-way around from the desk to look at them. “Don't worry. I'm sure Mr. Allen won't be getting away from me anytime soon.” He smiled at Barry over the computer monitors, before returning his gaze back to Caitlin and Cisco. “Go on. You both deserve the night off, and I'd say tomorrow too. For everything you've done to help me – for sticking by me, when so many others left – I don't think I could have done this by myself. I'll always be grateful to you.”

Caitlin felt herself blush, and beside her, Cisco shuffled his feet. “Dr. Wells, it's fine,” she mumbled.

“No, it's loyalty, and I thank you both for it.” Dr. Wells pulled his wheelchair away from the computers, and headed towards Barry's bed. “Now, go have a good time. I'll keep Mr. Allen company.”

Caitlin should have felt guilty. She should have felt guilty for going to watch some mindless action with Cisco, for buying a large bucket of popcorn to share between the two, for actually enjoying the movie instead of wallowing in her grief.

Instead, even if she couldn't entirely call what she felt happiness, it certainly wasn't sorrow. And it didn't hurt.

 

*                                  *                                  *

 

This was third day in a row Cisco had spent blasting music over the speakers. He had started with some video game music, a few movie soundtracks – the _Harry Potter_ one was a nice choice, she had to agree – but now he was getting to some more obscure ones.

“And which one is this supposed to be?”

“It's, uh...” Cisco kicked against the desk leg, sending his chair wheeling towards the monitors. “It's _Girls Chase Boys_ ,” he confirmed.

Caitlin leaned over his shoulder, then made a face. “His _Facebook_ page, really? Doesn't that make you feel like a bit like, I don't know, a stalker?”

“A stalker? _Really?_ ” Cisco said defensively, spinning around to face her.“After we've had his body for months?”

“His body, sure, but we don't actually _know_ him,” Caitlin protested.

“Caitlin, don't worry, this page is public,” Cisco assured her, kicking back to the other side of the desk. “And you didn't complain when I read his blog on weird myths and stuff. Besides, if we want to wake him from the dead one of these days, we need to suit his tastes.”

Caitlin sighed, but decided he had a point – about the blog, at least. Otherwise...at this stage, she didn't believe anything would wake Barry up.

After the first month, the possibility of a coma patient awakening and fully recovering decreased sharply. After nine months, the prospect was incredibly slim. Barry would probably just stay in the Cortex month after month as they worked around him, hummingbird heartbeat beating his life away, until the Wests decided to take his body off elsewhere.

To be honest, Caitlin wasn't actually sure what they would _do_ if Barry ever woke up, or the Wests took him away. Dr. Wells had only stayed here, maintaining S.T.A.R. Labs, to take care of Barry. And Caitlin and Cisco had stayed because of Dr. Wells.

If Barry ever left, what else would keep them here? They had no business plan – no real _business_ – and could barely afford to keep the place running. It'd be years before they could entice anyone to come work for them again, let alone put the company back on the map and compete with the likes of Mercury Labs.

Maybe they'd just drift away, the way everyone else did.

It wasn't like they were doing anything useful anyway. For Caitlin, it was just day after day of working through projects that would go nowhere and research that no one would review – not when her name was still attached to S.T.A.R. Labs. Even Cisco's projects drew a bare minimum of attention, and the only outlets interested in taking a look were international.

Nine months since the particle accelerator exploded, and nothing had changed. The city still hated them. The lab was still empty.

Something had to give, because they couldn't keep going on like this – trying to offer the city something _good_ again, something that could make a difference, and being rebuffed time and time again. It wasn't like she could quit, either. She couldn't let Dr. Wells and Cisco carry the weight of the lab and the hatred alone, or abandon the one worthwhile thing they'd accomplished in helping Barry.

Or leave the place was one of her last remnants of Ronnie.

She was mired, stuck, and she didn't know which way to move. Nine months, and this had become their new normal.

She needed something to _change_.

She only prayed it would be for the better.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank-you for reading!
> 
> Also, since this is un-betad and I know I sometimes have a habit of skipping over words or adding in extra ones (despite all my editing), please let me know so I can fix any mistakes.
> 
> On one last note, I hope I captured the essence of Harribard Eowells' “look at me I'm an evil speedster from the future who hates the Flash!” double entendres that make sense to no one but himself.


End file.
